Healthy Snack Invented on Native Reservation Faces Stiff Corporate Competition

Reader Contribution by Jay Walljasper
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The Pine Ridge Indian reservation is not the first place you’d look for good news about creating a new kind of economy that works for everyone.

This corner of South Dakota includes several of the poorest counties in the U.S., according to census figures. Ninety-seven percent of Pine Ridge’s Lakota population lives below the federal poverty line, reports the American Indian Humanitarian Foundation. The unemployment rate is well over 50%.

Yet these dire conditions — compounded by public health problems like diabetes and addiction — have not snuffed hope. Growing numbers of Pine Ridge residents are embracing their own traditions as a path toward healing and economic self-sufficiency.

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